<- awakens.. Stretches a yawn... Grabs iPhone and checks BT.
Sees everything has been handled.
Excellent. Now for a little workout.

Happy Monday.

Now you're talking Tony! An MU2 would be an awesome step up for you and much more affordable than a TBM. BTW, don't act like you're not actually considering this...

I've recently begun considering the MU2 as well. The next step up the ladder for me requires pressurization and either 250+kts or a true cabin class cabin to make the trek to southern FL attractive. That includes choices (in my price range) between the A*700, C414, C421 or MU2. The MU2s combination of cabin size, performance, relative economy and good support are exceptionally attractive.

What's not at all attractive are all these complex training requirements and mentor time. The cost and hassle of flying with a mentor is so unappealing I can hardly stand it and that's not to mention the 9 day SFAR training. Holy cow man. Ain't nobody got time for 'dat.

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The alternative didn't work out too well. Consider it time well spent on life preservation.

When you compute this in cost per mile, the MU2 can rival the cabin class piston twins in economy.


I did my SFAR initial in 5 days. Ground school and flight training in aircraft. Recall that I was stepping out of a Cessna 210. The MU2 was my first twin, turbine, pressurized, known ice, flight level airplane. 9 days is excessive for a prepared pilot.

Your negativity towards a mentor is misguided. It was very comforting to me to have them around for some number of hours. You can learn a lot from them even if they never touch the controls (mine never did). Flying with a mentor is FAR more tolerable than the hassle of figuring out how to fly a piston twin for 100 hours. I made actual use of the airplane during this time, mostly day trips. Some folks burn out mentoring time by just flying randomly for a week or two until they get the hours. I think that's kind of silly, but it meets the requirements.

BTW, stepping out of a single into a turboprop twin will almost always come with mentoring time if you want insurance, so this isn't unique to the MU2 by any means. Try it in a King Air, for example.

Mike C.

The alternative didn't work out too well. Consider it time well spent on life preservation.

Not sure where you got your numbers from. If you already have multi-time and complete an approved training program, it shouldn't be nearly that long. In my case, I completed my training in airplane with Reece Howell (Howell Enterprises, Smyrna, TN). I bought one of his instructor pilots a one-way ticket to Washington and picked him up at KIAD. We then drove to where I had the plane (Manassas, VA) and flew it back to Smyrna on a Saturday afternoon (I flew left seat and this did count as instruction time). I spent Sunday reviewing the materials and going over cockpit flows in the plane. Initial training started Monday and was a combination of ground school and flight instruction (somewhat weather dependent but we basically flew over most of the Southeast US). On Friday morning I passed my check-ride. After lunch I could have flown home but it would have meant my first solo flight in the airplane would be at the end of a long day and a night arrival into the DC area. I made the risk management call to spend another night in the hotel and flew out first thing Saturday morning getting home by lunchtime.

In my case the time away from home was a total of 7 days but that was because I wanted the Sunday before training to get my mindset in "training mode" and I wanted to do my training away from home and all the distractions to ensure I was focused on learning.

Obviously insurance brokers will come up with different policies depending on your experience. In my case, they said that if I trained with Reece, no mentor pilot time would be necessary as Reece is known for not passing students until they are truly ready. I don't remember what his numbers are but he had warned my there was a decent chance (maybe 25%?) that I would not be done by Friday and would either have to stay longer or fly home commercial and return again for another few days when my schedule permitted. I viewed this as a good thing as I was not looking for just a sign off, I wanted to be safe when I flew my family, friends and co-workers.

That said, I also strongly believe in simulator training and feel you learn things in the sim you can't learn in the plane. Like Mike (I think it was him) said in another thread, my opinion is that the ideal thing is to learn in your plane (learn all the switch positions, nuances, etc.) and then follow it up with simulator training.

WRT mentor pilots flights, there are plenty of opinions on this. I personally believe there is no one size fits all solutions. A big benefit of flying with a mentor pilot is getting more exposure to the environment of a high-speed turboprop flying in the mid-flight levels and the high altitude ATC system with someone who knows it. That said, if you already have experience in that area, that is very different from a pilot stepping up who has never flown above 15,000 feet in a normally aspirated plane.

One thing I strongly encourage all prospective MU-2 pilots/owners and those interested in the plane is to join the forum/email list at http://www.mu-2aopa.com. It is not nearly as big as what we have here on Beechtalk, but is probably the best resource on the planet for MU-2 information. The mailing list is very active with participations from about 80% of all MU-2 owner/operators (worldwide) as well as all the MU-2 service centers and Mitsubishi itself. How often can you post a question asking about a part or part number and get a response within a few hours from one or more service centers with the details, cost and availability at their facility? Mitsubishi is ranked #1 in aircraft support consistently year after year after year (much to Gulfstream and Pilatus' chagrin) because it really does put its money where its mouth is. That's why AIN changed the "support category" into two -- for planes in production and planes out of production...they didn't like the fact Mitsubishi ranked higher supporting a plane out of production for 30 years than companies supporting planes costing tens of millions of dollars scored on brand new planes...

Two closing thoughts:
- I yield to Mike Ciholas' comments on building time in the MU-2 and SFAR compliance. I'm not sure he is the only person to qualify in the MU-2 when effectively a single engine pilot before hand, but he's the only one I know of in the last 5-10 years.
- I am the webmaster for www.mu-2aopa.com, but make no money off the site. I appreciate all that Beechtalk does for the aviation community and we try to do the same while specializing in our niche airplane.

This catches the piston twin pilots who use the dead foot, dead engine routine. Fly the airplane, then carefully examine the engine gauges. Sometimes the failed engine is the one making MORE power.

Mike C.[/quote]


Can you expand upon this?

To your points:
- the MU-2 cabin on the ground (and in the air) is actually quieter than any but the newest King Airs. Now outside the cabin on the ramp is another story. The reason for this is pretty simple -- we idle at 77% RPM which is much faster than a PT-6.

- Flying the MU-2 is NOT harder than flying an A* or C421. In fact, I think it is easier. You have much more power available. As Mike C. pointed out, losing an engine is a much easier situation to deal with and much less "violent" than in an A* or C421. Outside of a jet, this is the easiest plane I've ever flown from a losing an engine perspective. They systems are also much more simple than in the A* or any of the Cessna 300/400 series. The fuel system is laughably simple. No cross-feed, no switching tanks. Basically "on" or "off" (it's actually a bit more complex than that, but not much). Pressurization is pretty much the same. Avionics are avionics. What makes the MU-2 so different (not difficult, different) to fly compared to other piston and turboprop twins is the wing and roll spoilers. The nature of both means this plane HAS TO BE FLOWN LIGHT A JET. Everything is about speed numbers. You do certain things on the acceleration schedule and certain things on the deceleration schedule, period. This is one of the things that people flying most twins just don't get because (with the exception of the MU-2) almost all prop twins fly exactly the same way. Muscle memory and things you had beaten into your head since the first time you flew a Diamond Twister or Piper Seneca that still apply in your A*, C421 or KA are simply not true once you get into the jet world. Things like flap retraction schedules (and what that does to the plane's lift and speed reserve) are not the same as what you were taught. Same goes for the MU-2.

To put things in perspective:

A King Air 90GTi:
EW: 6,950 lb
MTOW: 10,100 lb
Wing Area: 194 ft2

A Cessna 421:
EW: 4,501 lb
MTOW: 7,450lb
Wing Area: 215 ft2

A Mitsubishi Marquise:
EW: 7,570 lb
MTOW: 11,575 lb
Wing Area: 178 ft2

A Cessna 172:
EW: 1,691 lb
MTOW: 2,450 lb
Wing Area: 174 ft2

You are flying a plane that weighs much more than a KA90 or C421 on a wing that is not much bigger than a Cessna 172s! It is this high wing loading which (a) makes the plane so stable in turbulence, (b) makes the plane so fast (remember that the bigger the wing area, the greater the drag), and (c) requires such a complex flap system and makes retraction of the flaps something that is absolutely dependent on hitting certain speeds.

Happy to discuss this further if any are interested, but don't want to totally hijack this thread off the original subject.

Hope this information helps.

Outstanding feedback David. I've clearly got a lot more homework to do...

Can you expand upon this?[/quote]

Couple of things -- in any turboprop, but particularly one with auto-feathering or a Negative Torque Sensing System, dead foot is not necessarily dead engine. I (and others) have spoken about how non-violent the loss of an engine in the MU-2 is. This is because the negative torque system detects negative torque (slipstream driving the propeller) and drives the prop towards (but not quite to) feather. As a result, you don't get the tremendous yawing motion you get when this happens in a piston twin. As a result, pilots are taught to fly the plane and verify which engine has failed by looking at the torque gauge. They do NOT use the dead foot to identify.

Second, in turboprops, the fuel to the engine is controlled by something called (funnily enough) a fuel controller. Without getting deep, this is really the "brains" of the engine and looks at a variety of parameters (throttle position, condition lever position, engine rpm, temperature at various points in the engine including the intake, air pressure, etc.) to schedule how much fuel goes to the engine. The things are really amazing and a big part of the reason a turboprop (or jet) is so easy to fly. If one fails, it can fail one of two ways -- not enough fuel to the engine (thus a partial or total loss of power) or too much fuel to the engine (an increase in power). In this case you can have an engine fail "high" where it drives to maximum power (or even above) and now the plane is yawing to the "good engine" because the failed engine is the one making more power. In this case, the dead foot is the foot on the "good engine" and if you were to shut down that engine you have the worst of both worlds. You have shut down the good (controllable engine) and have no way to reduce the power on the one engine still running.

All of these conditions can be diagnosed by looking at what your engine instruments are telling you, but they run counter to what piston twin flight instructors beat into your head for years -- dead foot = dead engine. As in many things in life, the truth is "it depends" and it is not as simple as all that.

Don,

I am not the world's greatest experts on MU-2s. There are people out there who literally have years more flight time than I will likely ever have before I die (I know of at least one pilot with over 18,000 flight hours in MU-2s...). That said, happy to continue discussion off line if desired. You can email me at d a v e at k l a i n dot net or we can talk on the phone if you want. I'm actually placeless right now and getting ready to fly out to Scottsdale next Monday to pick up my bird and bring it back to DC. Reason why is a long story that I'll be sharing with Beechtalk (and the MU-2 community) once everything gets sorted out, but it speaks to how tough and redundant these airplanes are....

Dave

Additionally... After flying a couple hundred hours in the Mu2 when I did my Learjet Type Rating (did I mention my Learjet type rating?... ), the transition into the jet was nearly comical.
Identical speeds in the terminal area, more performance and WAY way way less work. Only surprises were the jet lands easily and you need to be in control of your speed 25 miles out instead of 5 miles out.

Its a great stepping stone.

Pretty soon you'll be qualified to fly one of them there Citations. Let me know when you're ready, I know of a good school.

Not sure where you got your numbers from. If you already have multi-time and complete an approved training program, it shouldn't be nearly that long.